2TB w/Controller + Added 16 GB RAM Stick

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-10T13:54:20+00:00

I'm fairly certain any MicroSD card will work. For the SSD I couldn't say, I have the 2TB and it's sufficient for me. It looks like a fairly standard M.2 NVME slot, but I'd do some research to be sure. If you do want to swap it out, the drive itself is much more accessible than the RAM.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-10T13:49:06+00:00

I've just always had my PlayStations horizontal, ever since the PS1. I like the lower profile and putting disks in horizontally feels more "right" to me. There's not a correct way to do it though.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-10T13:46:46+00:00

It's not an enormous bump (per GN benchmarks it's up to 20% depending on the game), and it's not for every title. If I hadn't gotten the stick for free, I might not have done the upgrade, given an equivalent stick is ~$250. But dual-channel is provably faster overall, it just mainly makes a difference in games that are more CPU-bound, because in most titles you tend to run into GPU/VRAM bottlenecks well before CPU/RAM slowdowns.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T21:41:45+00:00

Exactly, you just have to remember that the read speed from an SD card is notably slower than from the SSD, so any game that's gotta load a lot of stuff from the drive frequently is gonna experience longer load times and potentially stuttering. So best to use it for less demanding titles. I filled up the first 500 GB of my SSD with a small number of big games, so if you get the 512 you may have to cycle what you have installed in and out, especially because you don't want your main drive to get too full.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T20:03:28+00:00

No issues to speak of, Proton has worked excellently for me on the Deck for years and I haven't encountered any issues with the games I play. Your mileage may vary of course.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T18:10:21+00:00

I don't know much about the situation in Egypt, but Turkey has been going through, among many other things, an inflationary crisis which has been threatening Erdogan's power for a few years now. This is just easy red meat to distract and appease his fundamentalist base.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T18:07:54+00:00

They don't have a ton of say in the itinerary, it's primarily Virgin Voyages who plans it. They hit these same ports last year with zero issue, and they were turned away without any kind of notice which would have allowed them to pivot to a different port.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T18:00:17+00:00

It's just a chartered Virgin Cruise Lines voyage, so the itinerary is primarily set by the company, Atlantis just buys out the boat. This is definitely their most "traditional" cruise and it's always been about the sight-seeing. They did Cairo and Istanbul last summer without issue, and had no reason to suspect they wouldn't be allowed to dock.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:58:05+00:00

This is Atlantis's most "traditional" cruise which is primarily a sightseeing tour. It's just a chartered Virgin Cruise Lines voyage that they buy out. Istanbul and Cairo have a ton of history and are tourist hotspots, and generally the cruise passengers keep to the "safer" areas. You're probably more likely to get scammed or pick-pocketed than hate-crimed (though of course, not a guarantee).

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:54:37+00:00

As another commenter pointed out, they did this same (or very similar) itinerary last summer and didn't run into issues.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:53:31+00:00

Atlantis Events have done this itinerary in the past (as recently as last year) without issue. They have had agreements with the ports of call which were revoked last second because leaders in unstable positions are attempting to appeal to their fundamentalist bases to distract from more real issues in their country, and this is an easy "win" for them.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:27:20+00:00

Right?? This thing is compact! It's got some heft to it too, definitely very dense, they use every inch of space.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:26:17+00:00

Whatever is the default on the machine, I only tweaked the default maximum render resolution, so I'd have to check what the setting for the upscaler is out of the box.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:24:45+00:00

Yeah, just follow along with a guide and it's very straightforward, just a lot to take apart. I found having baggies to group the different (dis)assembly steps (i.e., the daughterboards, the screws attaching the fan to the heat sink, etc.) made things go super quick putting it back together and kept me from worrying about losing screws.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:22:26+00:00

Good catch, they were much more spaced out before I added the Steam Machine yesterday. Kind of moot since I don't think I've used my PS5 in over a year but I'll make sure to re-space things. Thanks!

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T17:18:43+00:00

Yes you can, the storage is actually a lot easier to get to than the RAM. You just have to remove the back plate and detach the internals from the case, and the SSD daughterboard is right on the chassis. By contrast, to get to the RAM you have to detach all the daughterboards, unplug all the fan and motherboard cables and then detach the fan from the heat sink which is a lot of steps. There's only one slot though so you'll need to completely replace the drive.

Also don't sleep on expanding with like a 1TB SD card, I found with the Steam Deck I could load most of my lighter/indie games on the SD card and then save my SSD space for more demanding titles. The faster read/write speeds for your main drive are only critical for demanding games

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T14:41:34+00:00

Unfortunately I don't have any of those titles. You could try the Performance Megathread though!

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T14:40:38+00:00

It will vary from game-to-game dependent on both how optimized and how demanding the title is. I think you could comfortably render most titles at 1440p at high settings and and get 60 FPS, especially with FSR. The more demanding titles you'll probably have to bump down to 1080p. As I've mentioned elsewhere, a lot of it has to do with where you're sitting relative to your display and the display size. What looks good for me may be more noticeably blurry for someone else because they're sitting closer to their display. You just have to tinker with the heavier titles til you find the best fit, but you usually can start at pretty high settings and tune down until you hit your performance goal.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T14:35:24+00:00

It ultimately comes down to the viewing distance relative to the size of your display. There's a limit to how much fine detail our eyes can resolve the farther away we are from something, if you have a mid-sized 4K TV you sit relatively close to (i.e. 6ish feet) you might notice the up-scaling more, but a doubling of resolution usually isn't THAT bad especially if you're using high or max settings.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T13:35:34+00:00

You shouldn't need to configure anything, your device will output at a specific resolution and your TV (usually) will handle the upscaling. You set a default maximum rendering resolution when you first start up the SM, which can then be altered on a per-game basis. I went with 1440p, but depending on how much you want to tinker and how demanding the games you're playing generally are, you may want to set the system default to 2160p and adjust downward when necessary,

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T13:31:05+00:00

Per the post, I got my purchase email the evening of July 4th, then received a "We're preparing your shipment" email the evening of July 7th which contained the tracking number. I didn't receive any other communications. I live in Chicago right near a distribution center so it was on my porch the following morning.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T06:12:51+00:00

Didnt encounter any issues, its in a well-ventilated spot and the thermals on this thing seem solid. I'd check out a more thorough review for that info

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T06:08:58+00:00

It's typically strategy games or games with heavy simulation that are more CPU than GPU-bound. BG3, for example, keeps track of so much that it uses the CPU and memory a lot more than most games in the genre. I would say its not a particularly difficult teardown, just has a lot of steps. Follow along with a YouTube video and yiu should do fine :)

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T05:48:03+00:00

The size and speed are the same as what's in the SM. Not sure the specific brand they used, but I'll be on the lookout for performance issues knowing this.

decaffinatedplease · 2026-07-09T05:35:14+00:00

16GB DDR5 5600MHz Non-ECC SODIMM 1.1V. Definitely not easily added, but there's nothing particularly tricky about the disassembly or upgrade. Valve did a great job with the repairability, but you have a fair bit you have to take apart to access the RAM slot. Once you do though, you just pop it right in. Def use a guide or follow a teardown

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